1. I totally should get the new version, it's still great!
2. Well, it's long been surpassed by (enter game name) but it still might be interesting for learning the history of the genre.
3. Eat a bag of farts, fatty!

I haven't played many (read: any) modern RPGs, so I don't really know what types of changes would be jarring. In Diablo, do you have to tell each character what to do each round of combat? Because that's how Bard's Tale works. I don't know about the updated ones, but the originals didn't have automatic mapping and it was pretty easily to randomly bump into a party of baddies that would destroy your party. (The new save feature is worth it, for that alone.)

For me, the genre starts with Wizardry. It's a 3D dungeon crawler that exists within a 6 or 7 layer dungeon. When you leave the dungeon, the game just asks you where you want to go though a menu -- the guild, the weapon shop, and so on. Bard's Tale expanded on that by making you walk around the town and making you physically go to those places, and also adding entrances to multiple dungeons throughout the town. (That also means, you kind of need the map that came with the game. It mapped out the town, but not the dungeons.) BT2 expanded on that by adding 6 different cities and also wilderness encounters. BT3 expanded on THAT by introducing the ability to travel to different worlds. The coolest thing about BT3 is that it begins in Skara Brae, after it has been destroyed. It was mind-blowing if you played BT1 to death like I did; perhaps not so much today.

I've love for someone who's never played those games to go back and give them a shot, although I suspect the lack of modern features like auto-mapping and the slower based combat might turn off modern gamers.

Dammit, my bad again, I thought you were mocking us and our enthusiasm for classic rpgs.

ICJ, I don't know what's going on here, I feel for the first time in my life discombobulated. I'm finally getting a glimpse of myself for the first time through these comments and I don't like what I'm seeing.

Neat. I played the DOS version of Bard's Tale but really it didn't stick with me like Wizardry did.. despite Wizardry being a much less "immersive" game than Bard's Tale was. I guess it just takes some enthusiasm and imagination.

I might try this but honestly the only CRPG I want to play next year is Cyberganked.

That's very kind of you, Jiz. The things I am hearing about BT4 is some non-CRPG stuff that has people on RPG Codex calling it a mobile game:

1) The strength determines how much damage you do. This is terrible, damage should be determine by strength to some degree, sure, but I'm hearing that weapon attributes don't figure in at all. So if you have a dagger or a long sword, damage is based on your strength.

2) It's ten minutes before you can customize your character and a while before you can customize your full party, which is 4. (I could have that wrong, maybe it's 6). So, each time I sat down and started plotting a game, I was faced with the choice between character customization and a player character. It's sooooooooooooo haaaaaaaaaaaard to do character customization, so I never did it. But I'm a MAN and I am making a CRPG, so Cyberganked is the first one that lets you make your own characters. Yes, it sucks having to constantly look up the character's gender, nationality, politics and so forth when trying to write some text, but this is what the genre demands. Everyone hates the PC they force on you at the beginning.

I never got into my career looking to manage people, but it has been thrusted upon me. If I am going to have that responsibility, I am going to try to do it well, but at the same time I think that managing people in an office setting has been terrible for 75 years or whatever it is, so I am not going to read office-based management books, but rather ones with a baseball or sports bent. I am saying all of this because the boss at the Bard's Tale 4 Company tweeted this out:

I wouldn't call out a specific team to the Twitter mob. Granted, he's probably not slept in three days trying to get the game fixed, but still.

It used to be very common for baseball managers to call out individual players to the press and blame them for stuff. Walter Alston of the Dodgers was hugely successful and stopped that practice, which led to the expectation today that the manager would in most cases have a player's back in public. I think that's an important trait to carry over to the rest of the world.

Is he calling out the team who worked on the combat system, or did he mean compatibility? Genuinely confused.

Oh, I forgot to actually write what I meant to write when I started that post. Let me add the part I forgot.

It seems to me that he was throwing his "compatibility team" under the bus, and I hope that everyone on that team tweeted in reply that he spelled compatibility wrong and we caught that one, asshole. But I mean, it was his call as to when to release the game, and the complaints I am seeing are not about it being "compatible" with things, it just runs like a pig on all hardware.

I thought it would be like Wasteland 2, which went to a different genre (CRPG to squad based tactics) but was still pretty good, although we now know that the combat was pretty broken at first (and what Pinback played).

I don't know what BT4 is supposed to be. It's not a marvel in terms of graphics, but that might just be my system at this point. You don't make 6 characters off the bat, you have a pre-made one that you are forced to use.... but only forced to use for literally three minutes before it lets you make a new one. I don't know why.

There's no random combat, all the combat is pre-determined. I do not know what kind of game they wanted to make, but it isn't The Bard's Tale. So I didn't feel like I got taken when I supported WL2. I do feel a bit lied to with this one. It doesn't really matter because I stopped supporting things on Kickstarter years ago and he at least finished his stuff.

Got it from GOG and await the updates. Doesn’t work on my new laptop and freezes but works on the old win7 fine. I probably need to update something on my win10 offline laptop. Graphics freezing or game entirely freezing is ridiculous.

I was hoping it’d have the appleII option to import ULTIMA 3 characters (only bt1 version to do so I guess).

I don’t recall if dragon wars got a remaster or not. I doubt we’ll see Centauri Alliance, Maze Master, or a Swords n serpents remaster. I really doubt a new version of BTCS will be implemented. And even though there will be a Legacy Mode, I doubt they’ll ever release an option to use old graphics from the multitude of systems the games were on. Kind of a pity. This oldie could be continually developed and updated but I just don’t see that happening.

I like old games and playing them again old is OK... (kind of done it before c64, amiga, dos, NES) but extra new makes it a bit more interesting.

When it does work it holds my interest for its simplicity. I just hope I fix this gfx glitch I have.

Looks like Bard's Tale #2 remaster is out - https://rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=11031 - that one I actually am going to start and play. BT4 may be a fine game. I don't know. But we were sold the idea of one game and given some casual gamer decline mobile console stuff. Which may be fine, but it ain't why I backed it. (I want to say I hella enjoyed Wasteland 2. One of the best games I ever played. I am so sick of people getting Patreon / Kickstarter / Indiegogo money and doing nothing with it that I resolved to never back anything ever again, so I'm not following the Wasteland 3 project. It looks good from the videos I've seen, but I'll happily just get it on release day.)

I found the new Torment game to have the worst writing I've ever read. inExile is very hit or miss for me.

I am pretty good. I am thinking of getting Silver Sword for iPhone or iPad (I need an iPad) or I could try emulation once purchased.

My current fascination has cycled back to ACS. I’ll make a thread or jump to an old one (probably old one down in creation kits).

Some old sites are vanishing. Kind of sad domains are bought and left like developement parking lots. Even internet archive fails. Me sigh.

As to BT, I was unaware that Brian Fargo was behind it at first. Hell, I didn’t know he and InXile created The Bards Tale with all the humor and such or had Wasteland 2 our.

I’ve started to frequent the RPGCODEX forums. I’ve made some good connections and watching some classics in their works like The Quest 5 I believe. I got a link to Devil Whiskey and it’s works quite well on win10. My option was to purchase a box copy but there are some awesome people that share.

With many emulation sites and roms/iso being erased due to pressure it’s good to know trading still goes on.

I purchase a lot of games through GOG. I prefer DRM to play offline without a steam client. I live in an area that only satellite would be reliable. Instead I go to the library and use their cable for the 2 hour limit and some days take my old laptop and use their WiFi.

I seem to be a digital hoarder so it’s download and transfer to hard drives. Utter mess like a pack rat. I bough 3 new 4T passport drives to cleave up the old 3T and 4T back up hard drives. I went all fancy since it’s fall:

Orange - RPG materials (table top PDFs, map programs, etc)

Red - video game and computer games

Yellow - YouTube videos, music, and maybe pictures. I have some movies but they are terrible youtube copies.

Maybe I’ll burn a few dvds or spring for a portable blue ray. I need a desktop instead of a laptop or maybe just a gamer laptop and a good monitor. Wireless gamepade, better keyboard (I never use the keys on the laptop or that stupid square finger touch mouse thing).